


Exaltation

by confettiinmyhair



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 01:29:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6779740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confettiinmyhair/pseuds/confettiinmyhair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck has been travelling, fixing some very old wrongs. Gabriel hasn't been himself for some time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exaltation

“Have you been on the radio, or something?” Gabe asked, the question finally bubbling up after all these weeks.  
  
Chuck looked up from his tablet, glanced at the plate Gabe was coming to collect from him before looking right up into Gabe’s eyes.  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Sorry, it -” Gabe took a deep breath, shrugging. “I thought it was - I dunno. Just somethin'… familiar about you, and it’s not your face. I don’t think.”  
  
Something fell in Chuck’s expression for the slightest instant, replaced all too quickly by that easy, gentle grin.  
  
“Nah. I think I just have one of those voices. I get that a lot.”  
  
Maybe he did, but not in the way people normally meant it. That much, Gabe could say.  
  
One Of Those Voices would have been soothing, oddly lulling.  
It wouldn’t have wound its way around the space where his collarbones met, wouldn’t have crept around his shoulders, wouldn’t have felt like warm sunlight on his back.  
  
It would not have felt, he was sure, like old dreams (the old dreams he was having again - about a thousand voices all silently murmuring, about being lost in a sea of noise, about the sea that always left him feeling so relaxed and so very alone when he woke...).  
  
“Maybe,” Gabe agreed, hoping his hesitation wasn’t so obvious as it felt.  
  
There was something searching in Chuck’s expression, then, and he seemed to be keeping himself from laughing.  
  
“You seem like _you_ must have, though.”  
  
“Must have what?”  
  
“Done radio. Back in college or something, right? Late-night… call-in requests. Right?” Chuck asked, and there it was, that tone, wending and invasive.  
  
“Yeah, actually. How did you…?”  
  
 Chuck shrugged, almost sheepishly.  
  
“Lucky guess, I think.”  
  
*  
  
Flirting with customers was a _bad idea_.  
  
Picking up customers was a _bad idea_.  
  
Writing your phone number on a customer’s receipt - on the receipts they never even glanced at before folding into their wallets - was setting oneself up for a tiny emotional disaster.  
  
Even ( ** _especially_** ) if they were regulars.  
  
Gabe knew this, largely from personal experience.  
  
And yet, here he was, because he wanted so badly just to listen to the man _talk_ , to try and eke out what the hell it was about him.  
  
(Not that the fascination was, in any way, strictly platonic… but it also wasn’t just his usual urge to cat around. This was something else.)  
  
*  
  
Two days. No call, no text, no sign of Chuck - well. Well, he’d only said he was passing through, after all.  
  
So maybe he’d simply moved along, tired of San Francisco, and hadn’t seen the note… or maybe Gabe had simply misread the situation. Wouldn’t have been the first time.  
  
And then came shift’s end, Gabe calling out, “Sorry, we just closed up-” as he glanced up from his closing counts sheet, to find Chuck standing nervously, holding the door open.  
  
“Sorry, I can uh-” Chuck gestured over his shoulder, and Gabe shook his head.  
  
“No! I mean, uh - no. I didn’t realize. It’s okay.”  
  
The pause drew out, five, six, seven seconds too long.  
  
“I lost my phone a couple days ago. That’s why,” Chuck said, stepping the rest of the way inside, letting the door swing shut. “I just haven’t gotten around to replacing it.”  
  
“Gimme twenty minutes, okay? I just gotta finish this.”  
  
*  
  
They walked to a corner store, bought some beer, and walked back to Gabe’s place, the conversation flowing between them with an easiness Gabe hadn’t known in years. Maybe hadn’t ever known - he wasn’t sure. And yet, it didn’t feel as foreign as he might have expected. It felt… right.  
  
They went up to the roof, drank slowly, talked and talked… talked about all of Gabe’s odd jobs, talked about everywhere Chuck had been, would be going, what he did before he’d taken off travelling…  
  
It was past midnight when they paused, and Chuck set his fourth bottle down.  
  
“So, what do you like about it? Being up here,” he asked, casting a gesture out over the lights of the city.  
  
Gabe shrugged.  
  
“It reminds me of… something. I don’t really know, actually. It’s something about the colors in the dark, and it feels familiar. Don’t know why. Kind of like…”  
  
He looked over at Chuck, hesitating.  
  
“What were you going to say?” Chuck finally asked, his voice setting off that gentle thunderstorm in Gabe’s body again.  
  
“Kind of like you. Like something I’ve known, but can't… remember? I’m sorry, this is-”  
  
He could feel himself blushing, saying something like that to a near-stranger.  
  
The little flash of sadness moved across Chuck’s features again, but then he laughed, easing it all away in an instant.  
  
“You did, didn’t you?” Chuck asked quietly, not looking away, and answered Gabe’s puzzled look. “I’ll bet you’d read little bits of poetry out on the radio, in college. Between the songs, if nobody called in.”  
  
He didn’t ask, knew Chuck would just say, _lucky guess_. But there was something to the question, to Chuck’s phrasing, to the slant of his smile, that pulled Gabe in, and here, he didn’t hesitate.  
  
He leaned over, raised a hand to slide up the back of Chuck’s neck, and Gabe smiled back - Chuck’s hair was exactly as soft as it had looked.  
  
The sweet, low sigh Chuck let out as their mouths finally met pulled at something in his heart, and he thought for a moment that perhaps that sound would stay with him forever.  
  
But then Chuck pushed a hand up between their bodies, and Gabe realized he was being pushed away, not pulled in.  
  
It wasn’t sadness, but something deeply curious in Chuck’s eyes, as Gabe pulled back.  
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
“Nothing,” Chuck whispered, shaking his head a little. “Just… take me downstairs? Inside? I don’t think I can, up here.”  
  
“Are you shy?” Gabriel asked, teasing without meaning to, grinning wide without thinking to stop.  
  
“No, I’m getting _cold_.”  
  
 *  
  
Chuck was a surprise, in the best ways.  
  
In the way he let himself be pressed back against Gabe’s door, in the way he moved against Gabe’s body, somehow needy and careful all at once.  
  
And then, when they’d made it down the hall and into the little bedroom, the way he pressed Gabe back into the mattress, climbing up into his lap.  
  
“What do you want?” Gabe breathed, leaning up.  He dragged his teeth against the skin where Chuck’s right shoulder met his neck to make him shiver, only biting down hard enough to make him gasp.  
  
“This. Just this,” Chuck smiled, fitting their mouths together for a moment, grinning as he pulled away. “Just - let me.”  
  
Gabe didn’t know what Chuck was even doing, but he wasn’t complaining - it was just touches, just fingers running over his skin against his ribs, Chuck’s lips pressed to his stomach, against his hips, and somehow, it was…  
  
Somehow, it was a waking dream, a long, tense, near-cresting arousal. It was… exaltation, if there was such a thing. He wanted it to never end. He wanted more. He wanted. He wanted, he wanted…  
  
He whispered something, a little ‘oh, god’, felt Chuck’s quiet laughter against his skin. Then, only finally, were Chuck’s hands on the zip of his jeans, opening, tugging, moving to wrap around his cock, firm strokes as Chuck leaned up to kiss him.  
  
Gabe was gone then, finished, whimpering little sobs against Chuck’s mouth as he came over his own stomach.  
  
It was a long moment before either of them moved. Chuck moved off of him, and Gabe took off his t-shirt, used it to wipe himself off, and shimmied the rest of the way out of his pants.  
  
He looked over at Chuck for a beat.  
  
“What the fuck was that?”  
  
Chuck raised an eyebrow.  
  
“You okay?”  
  
“I’m amazing, but what the… fuck…”  
  
“It was what you needed. And now, I think you should sleep.”  
  
“What about-”  
  
“I’m fine, Gabe. I promise. Sleep. I’ll still be here, if that’s what you want.”  
  
He nodded slowly, let Chuck pull the shoved-down blanket over him, let himself relax into the pillows.  
  
“Yeah, I think I do.”  
  
*  
  
There’d been a nightmare, another old dream, the dream of the battle hordes and burning fields, the piercing scream of all that rage…  
  
And Chuck had still been there, as he’d promised, had soothed Gabe back to sleep with his fingers in Gabe’s hair, humming a snippet of an old song he couldn’t quite remember.  
  
And then it was _the_ old dream. The sea of voices, the million presences, the murmur of home, the billion lights in the darkness of eternity, and… and the one voice, the one energy, that drowned all others out, that burned away all the… needlessness in the world.  
  
Home.  
  
Home was a smell before smells were, a smile before faces were, a raw, living force… and Gabriel? Oh.  
  
That force talked _to_ many, but only really talked _with_ him.  
  
Lucifer may have been the brash favorite, Metatron may have been the governor, and Michael and Raphael and Uriel may have been so, so well-loved among them all, but who else had had His trust? His ear? His confidence? None but him, even if he knew better than to be so prideful as any of the rest of them.  
  
*  
  
It was daylight when he woke, clawing his way out of his blanket, the old language - the _oldest_ language - on his lips as he struggled, toppling over onto the floor.  
  
There were hands on him, and he almost fought against them, batted them away, until they were on his face, gently, and the voice was urging him to calm, to calm, to breathe, in the old language, or as close to it as these mouths could muster.  
  
Gabriel fought to keep his nerve, kept his gaze locked on Chuck’s, determined to speak despite the shame he felt.  
And he was still Chuck, but Gabriel could not address him that way now, could not say anything other than the name He’d carried in those first days.  
  
“We were so alone. Lucifer was gone, and everyone else was fighting, so sure of what you’d want of us, and I… I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t have stopped them. Wouldn’t have. And you were gone, for so long!”  
  
“I know. I’m so sorry. It was so hard to remember - I don’t know how all of you do this, the ways you do. It’s _amazing_. And then I remembered, and I had to find you. I had to apologize. I had to make you whole. ”  
  
“But I didn’t remember,” Gabriel said, shaking his head, even in Chuck’s grasp. “I’ve been alone for years, not remembering.”  
  
“Your Grace was dormant, Gabriel. There is no shame. Beautiful one, there is no shame but mine, because you’re right. I left. I was in grief from my failures, and I let that blind me. I was wrong.”  
  
Gabriel grasped at his own shoulders then, as best he could, in renewed panic, but let Chuck calm him more quickly this time. He pulled Gabriel close, ran his fingers through Gabriel’s hair.  
  
“No. Not here. You can use them, but not here. You’ll destroy the building.”  
  
They sat that way for a while, in silence, Gabriel marveling at the feeling of his grace coursing through him again, the slow warmth of it, the correctness of it all.  
  
“Do you remember how we used to talk?” Gabriel asked quietly, in English this time, the shapes his mouth was more accustomed to.  
  
“I remember. You were the only one who knew how to joke. It’s why I trusted you.”  
  
“Yeah, but I mean. No bodies. Just… flowing together. Hard to believe we made jokes as energy waves.”  
  
“It was simpler,” Chuck smiled.  
  
“I guess so. We can’t do that now, can we?”  
  
Chuck shook his head after a pause.  
  
“No. Someday, maybe… but there’s still a lot to do, here.”  
  
“We’re still… I mean. I’m both of my selves. I’m Gabe, but I am Gabriel. And you… is it the same?”  
  
“I think so, but it’s difficult to tell. I don’t know how much of Me I absorbed as Chuck. Does it bother you?”  
  
”No. It’s just strange.”  
  
Without thinking, without asking, Gabriel shifted in Chuck’s arms, and kissed him. It was every bit as hungry and needful as the night before, but now - well, it was just so much  _more_ , wasn’t it?  
  
There was no resistance, no protest, nothing but a responding zeal.  
  
They fell over, together, grasping at each other. Gabriel was still very much naked, and resorted to tugging at Chuck’s sweater, helping him to struggle out of it, and kissed his way down Chuck’s stomach while he got the man’s corduroys open.  
  
Gabriel broke away long enough to shuffle through the bedside drawer for the lube he kept there, realizing midway through that he could have just wished it to himself, and laughed aloud.  
  
“What?” Chuck asked, and Gabriel shook his head as he dropped back to the floor.  
  
“Don’t worry yourself.”  
  
And then he had Chuck back in his lap, slicked open with two fingers, naked and gorgeous as human vessels could manage. Sound waves were simpler, perhaps, but human vessels? Such messy fun.  
  
Messy, breathtaking, noisy fun, it turned out.  
  
Chuck barely even grimaced when Gabriel took his fingers away to press his cock up into him. It was one, slow, steady slide, and the filthy, low groan it pulled from Chuck’s throat was an _experience_.  
  
“Hang on, just -” Chuck gasped, grabbing Gabriel’s hands and pressing them to his hips. He understood the encouragement all too well, dug his fingers into Chuck’s skin, and they moved with each other.  
  
There was nothing careful about the pace, about the deep, frantic rutting, about the way Chuck dug his fingers into Gabriel’s shoulders as he ground down on him.  
  
“Please,” he sighed out, and Gabriel laughed again.  
  
“Please, what? This?” he asked, reaching between them, wrapping his hand around the surprisingly heavy width of Chuck’s cock.  
  
“Yes. Please, that,” Chuck nodded. He groaned as Gabriel moved his hand, jacking him in time with the slower, rocking pace he’d moved into.  
  
Another little litany of wrecked, whispered _please_ s was all the warning Chuck gave. Gabriel gasped as Chuck tensed around him, groaning deep as he came over Gabriel’s hand.  
  
And yet he did not stop moving, even though Gabriel could feel his thighs shaking. He leaned in to Gabriel’s ear. “Listen, listen with that grace. You’ll be able to hear.”  
  
He’d been close already, so incredibly close, and the hot, greedy kisses Chuck was pressing to his throat sent him over, and he understood.  
  
For the most fleeting moment, as he pushed himself as deeply into the tightness of Chuck’s body as he could manage, as the euphoria washed over him, he could hear it - the great noisy ocean, the music of the spheres, there, in the front of his waking mind.  
  
_Exaltation._  
  
*  
  
They shifted up onto the mattress, Chuck pressed to Gabriel’s back, though they did not speak for quite some time.  
  
The shadows were growing long on the walls, late afternoon incoming, when Gabriel finally brought himself out of his laze.  
  
“Why can’t you go home yet?”  
  
“I just… can’t. You can, if you like. I won’t tell you not to.”  
  
“No, answer me. I deserve that.”  
  
He felt Chuck’s sigh more than he heard it, and waited.  
  
“I can’t go home while others can’t. It’s time to fix things. To fix mistakes, if they can be. Not right away - there are places even I can’t go unprepared. But… it is time, or time to try.”  
  
Gabriel did not have to ask what he meant.  
  
“And you would walk alone, into the Pit.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“No. I’m going with you.”  
  
“I can’t ask you to do that.”  
  
“And you’re not. I’m telling you, I’m - he’s. I love him, too. Even after everything. I’d have him home.”  
  
He could feel Chuck’s smile against his shoulder blade.  
  
“You’ve always been so much like him. Everyone else wanted to be like Michael, but you… well. Stubborn and impish and contrary. You have more patience and sense than Lucifer ever did, but you were both such bright lights.”  
  
“I thought you weren’t meant to play favorites.”  
  
“Turns out I’m an imperfect being, too.”  
  
Chuck’s little giggle was infectious, and they rolled together for a moment, letting the laughter take its course.  
  
“Come on. I know we don’t have to eat anymore, but there’s this killer banh mi joint a couple blocks over. My treat. And you can tell me what your real plans are.”

**Author's Note:**

> I admit, I haven't watched the show for many, many long years now. I was made aware of the explicit confirmation of Chuck as God, however, and had a thought process over on Tumblr. This is the end product of that thought process, because I adore Chuck and I've always missed Gabe.
> 
> It is also based off of certain recent ficlet work by the lovely exorin, and this is a little labor of love for her.
> 
> My original posting on tumblr can be found [here](http://hoverboardbandit.tumblr.com/post/144012681162/) (links to the related ficlets are in that header).


End file.
